Not in malls or office buildings. Not on city streets or
football fields. Certainly not in schools.

Life, as it always was, is a dangerous thing.

So there is no good answer as legislators and city councils,
school superintendents, cops and social workers try to grapple with school
safety in the wake of the Newtown massacre.

The Hoover City Council this week voted to bump up its police
budget so a cop can be present in every Hoover elementary school. It's a fine symbol,
but too costly to duplicate.

Alabama, after all, has 1,526 public schools. A cop in each
one -- assuming each costs what a deputy does - would come to $76 million a
year. Two in every school, like they had in Columbine, would cost $150 million.
That won't happen in a state that can't pay its bills and hates public
employees.

Gardendale wanted to do something, too. Or to look like it. The
council passed a resolution urging residents to "protect their Second Amendment
rights." Which of course is their meaningless prerogative.

Just as it is my prerogative to unanimously pass a citizen's
resolution - equally binding -- branding Gardendale's action a pandering pile
of political poo.

Come on.

And Rep. Kerry Rich of Albertville said he will introduce a
bill to allow certain teachers or administrators to carry guns in schools, as
long as they receive training.

Sounds ... great.

But as Alabama's top Homeland Security official pointed out,
even hardened law enforcement officers often fail to pull the trigger when the
time is right. And 22 percent of cops killed in the line of duty, DHS chief Spencer
Collier said, are killed with their own weapons.

"I'll leave it to the policy makers," Collier told a group
of school superintendents meeting in Birmingham. "But a
trained law enforcement officer should be the one with the weapon."

This is not a lily-livered guy, either, not a buttercup who
would have potential victims lie down and take it.

Collier, in fact, emphasized the need for citizens to fight
back against an "active shooter" if it comes to it.

"The days of being
passive are over," he told the educators. "There comes a time when you must
fight for your life."

But that doesn't mean we should pass out guns in the
schools.

Nor does it mean we should ban guns altogether.

Because, despite gun nuts and anti-gun zealots trying to use
Newtown to promote their own particular political agenda, our best hope for
safety in schools is not about guns at all.

The best answer for Alabama may already be in the works.

Most
Alabama schools - all but some in Baldwin, Cullman and Marshal counties - have
already submitted school safety plans and floor plans to Virtual Alabama, a
tool that gives emergency responders instant access to school layouts, video
feeds, evacuation routes and more, Collier said.

It is a remarkable tool. It is real. It is realistic. And while
it is currently funded entirely by the federal government, it does not come
with an astronomical price tag.

We can't guarantee safety, we know that. But we give it the
best chance when we seek realistic solutions together.

And avoid making political points off of tragedy.

John Archibald's
column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the Birmingham News, and all
the time on al.com. Email him at jarchibald@al.com